


These Words for Kindling

by dimtraces



Series: Runaways 'verse [6]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: (which Savage won a while ago tbh), Abandonment Issues, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Miscommunication, Past Child Abuse, Road Trips, Sith Training, the finale of Maul and Savage’s slowburn fight about whether they’re Sith or family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-04
Updated: 2018-01-04
Packaged: 2019-02-28 08:59:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13268091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dimtraces/pseuds/dimtraces
Summary: Three years ago, Maul chose to make the mistake of taking on an apprentice who cares far too much about the child that Maul used to be, and not at all about the painful path to power. A morning free of his annoyingly well-meant pestering might even be described as a holiday. A day is excessive, and when Savage keeps being gone, that’s when Maul truly starts worrying.





	These Words for Kindling

**Author's Note:**

> **Warnings:** Past physical and emotional child abuse in flashbacks. Torture (not lethal or scarring). Space xenophobia. Maul's stubborn attempts at being a Sith Master. Some casualties.

The Thyferran sun bathes the cargo hold with a warm green when Maul wakes up, and Savage is gone. That’s not a rare occurrence; usually, when Maul slowly crawls out of the veritable mountain of cozy blankets that used to be one orderly layer up until two months ago, his brother is already hurrying about, quietly or grumbling about his stiff joints and the hard floor underneath the mattresses. Sometimes, he’s hiding in the fresher to discreetly cover new scratches that he somehow still believes Maul doesn’t know about.

Maul should really be asking him where he keeps the horn files. He’s loath to give up any more of his body and especially something that might prove an advantage in a fight, and Savage does not complain, but it’s plain by now that blunting the tips of his horns is necessary. They can’t keep pretending that Savage is not being hurt. This new arrangement is permanent.

_(Two months ago, they burned the Sheathipede’s bed. It had just been taking up space, after—after what happened to his apprentice, and so Maul had unscrewed it from the floor and stolen termite and explosives, and watched his brother watch it go up in flames.)_

The pillow wall between their nest-sections topples with an idle kick. It’s normal for Savage to be gone already, and it’s not worrisome either, except inasmuch as it is yet another instance of Maul’s worrying lapses in discipline. It’s already past noon. Before he met Savage, Maul would never have dared sleep this long. Or—been able to.

That Maul cannot hear his brother or feel his warm presence in the force is stranger, but still easily explained: he’s probably just found a quiet space in which to lick his wounds after yesterday’s fight. Maybe he chose to wake up early, to find more hatred to spew at Maul, more words with which to insult Maul’s former Master, or maybe he’s sulking. Maybe he’s grown tired of getting injured in his sleep and finally decided to find somewhere else to spend his nights. (Maul almost succeeds in telling himself that that’s what he’s always wanted.)

Maybe Savage is simply enjoying the sunlight, though.

Most of their time they spend in hyperspace where it’s dark throughout the day, and all too often Savage talks of Dathomir’s sunrises with a reverence that Maul thinks should be reserved to Sith teachings, or particularly well-designed droid blueprints. _Sheathipede_ ’s been docked on the heavily policed planet of Thyferra for two weeks now, hidden in a clearing since neither of them have the necessary identification documents to rent a hangar here, and Savage’s been up early every day to lounge in the sunshine. This morning is not unusual, and so, Maul thinks of nothing while he kneels down to meditate.

In the kitchen an hour later, a mug of long-cooled broth is waiting for him. Out of habit, Maul almost reaches for a box of protein bars, but there is little reason to prove his superior sense of taste when his only audience is an idling Cutlass interface. The broth tastes of an animal Maul can’t identify, but there is no-one to ask.

Still Maul suspects nothing when he runs through his katas in the wet moss outside. Instead, he thinks about his apprentice’s laughable aversion to backflips, which certainly aren’t unnecessarily dangerous and goofy, and calculates what it would take to wear the resistance down. An hour of ball-games, perhaps, for another of watching his apprentice fall flat on his face. Or perhaps it’s another chance for Maul to prove his role: for him to speak the order and brook no argument, since that is what a Master does. _Either way,_ _Savage will look stupid_ , Maul knows. There is little chance he’ll ever execute a perfect landing, or even a clumsy one that leaves him standing on his feet. It’s too late for him. He’s strong, but he’s not graceful, will never become it unless he shrinks and Maul invents a time-machine and changes the Rule of Two so Lord Sidious will consider training him as well. Savage hates acrobatics. He’ll look so stupid. Maul decides he’ll order him to do at least fifty.

Savage is nowhere to be found when Maul fixes a flickering light in the engine room, and when he walks into the cockpit, and the fresher.

He’s not outside, hunting for worms, either. He isn’t doing pull-ups on the sharp blue trees that dot their clearing. He isn’t running laps. _It would take half an hour at most_ , Maul estimates, _until he’d pass the ship again if he was running, no matter what route he might have taken_ , and Maul must have been waiting here, pacing and then forcing himself to sit down every few minutes and then pacing again with more ferocity, for twice that. _Could he have… no._ There are few reliable paths out here, and the forest is deep and, per the locals, largely unexplored and filled with unknown but venomous predators. Savage would avoid leaving the paths. He isn’t that stupid. Despite his opinions on Maul’s old Master, he isn’t actually stupid.

Maul goes inside and sits down on his blanket and meticulously checks his leg prosthesis for loose wires, and Savage isn’t there.

+

The speeder bike, which Maul will name _Bloodfin_ once it’s finished in honor of the bike he left in the LiMerge building three years ago, roars satisfyingly across the clearing and back again. Then, it wobbles and jumps and almost smears him against a tree. Maul curses. He spent the whole blissful evening removing the governor and recalculating its maximum speed fifteen times and polishing its insides, and it’s still unusable. He pulls off the casing again. It’s shamefully dented and rusty—truly, Maul did its owner a favor when he liberated the unloved bike—but there is no point in tending to its looks when he’s still in the process of working over the mechanics. There should not have been a fault in the steering, but Maul will find it. He’s looking forward to the challenge.

 _It’s good that I had an entire day to myself_ , Maul decides. _I would have torn Savage’s head off if he’d said one more word, and so he left me to cool my anger. We would have argued again—_ Maul is not even supposed to tolerate backtalking from his apprentice, and he had no idea how to stop it— _and I’d have hurt him worse. Now, Savage will come back and pretend there was no fight, and I’ll have a functioning bike. This is good._

The itching in the back of his mind is just the break in routine.

+

Maul remembers this room. He is almost certain that he’s been here before, and then he looks at the ground and the smoking droid parts strewn across it and knows that he can’t have left the complex, ever. The floor is close, and suddenly, he is young again. He is small and excited and stupid, and his Master’s criticisms cut even more because this time, Maul _knows_ his victory was remarkable. He built the assassin droid himself; it’s nimble and programmed to be utterly unpredictable and Maul cut it down in just _minutes_. He killed it. He is _invincible_.

Master disagrees. He chides, He sighs, He turns to leave. _Forever_ , He says, _because there is no promise here_ , and Maul is so angry and he lowers his head and runs and—now he is held down, unable to move or scream or beg, to kneel in submission or try drawing comfort from wrapping his arms around himself. He cannot rip out the intravenous drip that’s been keeping him alive for days. He burns. There are no fire ants, and he burns. The stumps of his horns ache, and they leak and the only thing he knows is that he deserves this. Did he fight? Did he headbutt his Master? Did he—? He does not remember. He never remembers the reasons for punishment.

 _What use is pain if you don’t even know what you did, afterwards? This is not teaching, this is…_ Maul’s mind argues, in his brother’s soft voice. _If the agony suffocates your thoughts, how will it teach? Think, Maul: what_ else _does Sidious want? What other goal to reach with your abuse?_ Maul does not know the answer, but he is no Master. Of course he doesn’t know.

Eventually, Maul’s eyes find the ceiling, patched and familiar and not Mustafar. Not LiMerge. Not Orsis. It is hot here, but—there are too many blankets on top of him. Nothing else. After a minute of breathing, Maul’s fingers find the tips of his horns, and the intact sharp points draw blood. He touches them again, just to make sure.

It was just a nightmare. A memory.

A worse one than usual, but that’s because… it takes a while to remember, and then it is clear as the ice-cold water that no-one threw in his face. No-one woke him, half-way through. No-one shouted from a safe distance. Now that Maul is sensible again, no-one is approaching him with gentle hands and trying to interrogate him about his so-called trauma with the subtlety of a brick.

Savage isn’t here.

He still hasn’t returned.

Maul untangles himself from his blankets and inspects every corner of the nest, but checking is just a formality. It’s messy, but it’s obvious that Savage hasn’t slept tonight. Despite the wall of pillows between them, he’d have stolen all the blankets. He always does. He isn’t here. He wouldn’t have let Maul dream for this long. Maul can count the nights that he woke up and Savage wasn’t there, already awake and worried, on one hand and have fingers left over.

Savage isn’t here.

This is wrong.

He did not bother Maul for an entire day. At the time, it felt like a respite, but in hindsight: _how did he not notice that something was wrong?_ Savage never gives Maul this much peace. He’s bad at existing on his own, and much too dedicated to annoying Maul. He insisted they share the sleep-room in the first place. (Not the nest, that was—but Savage doesn’t talk about that day, and therefore it doesn’t count.) He keeps nagging Maul about eating well. He keeps insulting Lord Sidious for what he did to... He keeps _worrying_.

Savage is large and strong, and still he has not unlearnt the craving for other people that Lord Sidious obliterated in Maul decades ago.

He can’t have outgrown it in the space of a single day. He can’t have left Maul. He can’t be gone.

Unless—

+

 _(“You don’t need to pretend, brother,” Savage growled_ , two days ago and a few hours before Maul last saw him.

_Maul paused his explanations, incredulous and angry. He fiddled with the ignition of his saberstaff, turning it off and on and off again, before dropping the weapon. Here was something worse than teaching the ways of the Sith to someone who obviously doesn’t care: being accused of not caring himself, when Maul had suffered and bled for his title. When he’d been so excited to have an apprentice of his own. So excited that he left Lord Sidious for the chance not to lose him._

_“What you’re saying… I would never treat a child the way Sidious treated you._ You _could never treat a child that way. You’re trying, because you think you have to, but… I know your master’s lessons, and I don’t want you to teach me.”_

_So few words, and it hurt more than any second of Maul’s training ever had._

_“You’re listening,” Savage said. “You’re not angry. That’s good.”_

_“Silence,” Maul spat and glared at him, but that wasn’t discouragement enough. Savage took Maul’s right hand then and pulled it up into the sunlight. Maul held himself very still. He knew what his brother was looking for, the startle that happened often when Maul was touched, and he would not give it. He could not afford to, because it would only take on the meanings that Savage wanted it to have: Maul flinches, and the force colors with pity and ache._ Savage does not want to be taught because I flinch _, Maul knew and refused to move, and it was not enough._

_Savage looked at the hand. The force sickened._

_After a while, Maul could see what his brother was looking at: criss-crosses of raised skin, fat burn scars and the echoes of lashes, broad and shiny and ancient. Maul had forgotten that they existed, masked under the stark colors of his skin, and they hardly hurt by now. He could not have hidden these. Savage was covered with scars himself, but that never seemed to matter. Hypocrite._

_“Brother,” Savage dropped into the silence. He still did not let go. “Brother. I don’t want you to teach me. You don’t want to teach me.”_

_“Apprentice—”_

_“You’ve tried, and I know what he did to—I know how you were trained, I have listened to you, and you think you need to recreate... I know you were strangled. Punished. Lashed. Brother. You don’t want to train me. It hurts you. It panics you. Please, listen. You are not Sidious. You will never be him. It_ hurts _you.”_

 _Maul heard:_ You have not been a good Master. _It burned less from Savage’s mouth than it always does in Maul’s thoughts. Somebody else noticed his failure, and it hurt less: it should not be like this._

_“I heard the first word you said and the second and the fifth, but I never got to hear the thousandth word that you learned to say,” Savage growled, and his eyes were very warm. Maul looked away quickly. There was no reason to bring this up now. Or ever. “I watched you crawl backwards into corners and gnarr because you couldn’t get out, because you didn’t understand directions yet that weren’t backwards, but I did not see your first fight. I did not see you grow up. That monster stole you from me. He stole those moments. He stole them for no reason, just to hurt you, just because he’s a pathetic old man who gets off on hurting children. He’s a monster. You were a toddler. I will never forgive him.”_

_It was difficult, still, to find a reply when the apprentice brought up Maul’s childhood. The Maul that Savage talked of was alien, a vulnerable small thing that he had nothing in common with but the name. It was not Maul, and those words were nothing but a reminder that when Savage looked at him, the person Savage saw was not Maul._

_The person Savage saw was not a Sith lord._

_“You didn’t raise me,” Maul ground out. “Lord Sidious did. Lord Sidious raised me, not you, and I’m glad for it. He taught me strength. If I’d stayed on Dathomir, I would be dead now.”_

_Savage flinched, and Maul realized what he’d just said._

I would be dead.

Dead. Like Feral is.

_It was a remark born from cornered anger, and it was simply meant to dispel dreams of the child that never was, but… Savage had confessed to being forced to murder a beloved brother, a task designed to break his will and cement his dependence on the Nightsister who owned him, like Kilindi Matako’s death had further bound Maul to Lord Sidious. Maul knew this pain, knew it well, and Savage had trusted him with it. And now he had thrown it back in Savage’s face._

I would be dead if I was the child you love: _it was the cruelest thing Maul could possibly have said, and he wanted to take it back immediately, to distract from it by confessing his childhood dreams of running away and not being alone, but… that was the whole problem._

_Lord Sidious would not have apologized._

_Maul pulled his hand away, finally, and wrapped it around himself. It trembled against his stomach. He swallowed. Then he explained again, “You are not the Master here. I am. Whether you want me to teach you is irrelevant, and it has stalled, I admit, but your training shall continue—” or_ start _, rather, but admitting that was too close to agreement with Savage— “Sith training, in exactly the way I was talking about. I’m not pretending. Now. We will not speak of this again. Power is necessary for survival, and you will learn to draw strength from your pain.”_

_That was a lie, though._

_Savage didn’t learn anything that day. Instead, it went like every attempt at a lesson that wasn’t sparring; was nothing but Maul’s bluster and his lightsaber faltering instead of burning, and Savage’s pitying, kind eyes. Every explanation, every justification for Lord Sidious behavior—they all faltered._ You don’t want to train me _kept running through Maul’s head, and the harder he tried to disprove it, the more he wanted to throw up. The only thing worse than Maul’s failure was the knowledge that both of them could see it, and that Savage didn’t even mind._

_Something must break now, surely; either the world or Savage’s face with its disgusting, patient, hopeful eyes. This life made no sense. Nothing did. Nothing broke._

_Afterwards, Savage said he wanted to look at the crickets instead of sleeping, and Maul hated himself for his gratitude. He was too distracted to notice that Savage never went to bed.)_

+

“He’s terrible at subterfuge. He must have told you something. Where is Savage, Cutlass?”

“I am Gorge,” the kitchen head mutters. It isn’t, and this is pointless. It’s the third interface of Cutlass the ship AI, and Maul’s only allowed his apprentice to refer to it by a false nickname out of a lingering sense of guilt. The blasted thing is faulty, and while Savage never complained, the way Maul expected him to… Now, it’s grown used to Savage treating it as a separate entity. A droid with personality issues. It seems that Savage rubs off his strange worldviews on everyone.

“Gorge,” Maul acquiesces, if only because there is no time. He regrets deeply that he afforded it this much leeway. The next version shall have infinitely superior programming. “Where is my brother.”

“What are you t-t-t-t-talking about, Master?”

“My apprentice. He isn’t on the ship. We fought, one and a half days ago, and now he is missing.”

“I don’t know, Master Maul. Why would he be gone? Where would he go?” replies Savage’s droid friend, the most useless thing in the entire galaxy.

“Did he visit you before he ran off?”

“He wouldn’t leave us. He loves you, and he just wanted to bring you a present because... He definitely never told me anything about where he didn’t go. Have you looked everywhere? This ship is t-t-truly quite big. Maybe he’s just—”

“Where. Is. Savage.”

“I wouldn’t know. No-one ever tells me anything. It’s very dark in here, my photoreceptors are badly calibrated I t-t-t-t-t… I believe. I am always here, waiting, and only very rarely Savage will come and visit me and ask me about the flora and fauna of a given planet. You don’t visit me very often, Master. Did you know that rancors are curiously widespread in the galaxy, with specimens found at both ends of the Hydian Way? They are highly valued as beasts of fighting and livestock, and even worshipped, in the Outer Rim. And yet they do not exist inside the Expansion Region or corewards, which suggests—”

“Override code senth-wesk-qek-qek-one-three-three-five-zero-resh-resh. Do not lie. There is no time for this, droid, and you _will_ tell me. When did you last talk to Savage?”

“Nine milliseconds aft-t-t-ter a quarter-second after three seconds after ten seconds af—”

“Stop.”

The droid is still dissembling. Despite the fact that it can’t lie anymore, it’s using as much leeway as possible, complying with the letter and not the spirit of what Maul wants. It’s drawing out its answers. It _knows_ something, and it doesn’t want to tell Maul. This is vexing, but even more deeply: it’s worrying.

There’s only one person who could have compromised its functioning to that degree. Savage may not have the technical knowledge or authorization to back up his wishes, but he has something strangely powerful. He has its loyalty. It knows that Maul could and will wipe its memory for the disobedience, and yet…

It likes Savage better.

It always takes Savage’s side against Maul.

That kind of motivation shouldn’t exist; it _doesn’t_ , according to Lord Sidious, and so Maul had heretofore stayed ignorant of its danger. There is no such thing as petty friendship, not in droids made to carry out orders, and not in sentient beings. There is only power, and those who strive for it, and those too weak to count. It doesn’t make those wretched beings more loyal. _Everyone wants power_. Submission but reflects the lack of opportunity for challenging the Master.

_(“It doesn’t love you. It only likes the food that you give it,” Master said, and then He stood and watched until Maul took the buzzbird and broke its neck. “It never loved you.”)_

As long as Maul hadn’t needed to predict his brother’s behavior— _why try, when Savage was always there, right beside him_ —as long as it didn’t matter that this explained nothing whatsoever about Savage; and before, as long as he’d known no-one but Master, for whom this held true—it had looked like fact. Now, though…

It’s obvious that Savage doesn’t want power. He refused it. He doesn’t want to be taught the ways of the Sith, he wants… Up until two days ago, Maul would have said that what Savage wants is family, but… Savage is gone, and he fought with Maul, and Gorge would not be hiding anything if Savage hadn’t asked him to.

That the droid Maul rewired is lying hurts.

_But that Savage would…_

“—me. Maul, are you alright?” The droid is loud, now. It must have been trying to get Maul’s attention for a while. “Are you alright? You’re t-t-t-t… shaking.”

“I am fine.”

Maul isn’t. Nothing is fine. There is only one possible explanation, now.

Savage has left him.

The pain of betrayal is a heady rush and it melts knives idling in the sink and burns the cutting-board— _distantly, Maul decides that in this moment, he could fight all the Jedi and win_ —but there are times when calm is necessary, and now it is crucial. He will never find his runaway apprentice by feeling hurt. He’ll find him by _thinking_.

He must understand his apprentice’s reasoning if he is to get him back.

He has to figure it out— _there is no other option, Maul will find his brother if it kills them both_ —but if Savage left him then all that Maul thought was true isn’t, and what lessons Master imparted on sentient behavior… what Maul knows of Sith apprenticeship… It’s a starting point, even though he understands by now that what he was taught is, at best, only a tiny part of the whole panoply of sentient behavior.

It’s familiar, though, and Lord Sidious would not have passed on that knowledge if it was entirely baseless.

So: what binds apprentice to Master is not love but lust for power. The apprentice stays because he wants to be taught. Maul is a worse teacher than Lord Sidious, and even then… No apprentice is content with his lot. No Master is content with an idling apprentice. _The apprentice kills his Master, or he dies._ Mastery or the maggots, that is the path of the Sith, but talking to Savage about the teachings of Bane has always been fruitless. Whenever Maul broaches the subject, Savage shakes and talks of Feral and promises to kill himself before hurting Maul. One day, he will learn.

He _would have_ learned. He would have understood. But Savage left.

 _Kill or be killed_ , but…

It’s not the whole truth, anyway. Nothing that Maul has ever known was the whole truth. There is a third path.

Maul left his Master, and yet, he lives.

He didn’t want to leave. He was proud, eager for the power that Master promised him, and he didn’t want to leave until months after Savage forced him to, but he should not lie to himself. In his infancy, his childhood, his youth, there were days when he wanted to escape. There were days long gone when he wished for the life he has now. When he was a young apprentice, hungry and tired and alone, he thought of escape constantly. He wanted to run.

Kill or be killed.

Or _run_.

Savage must have left on foot, two nights ago or in the morning. The likely destination, Maul can guess: they are a few miles out of Thyferra’s capital, Ty City, which both of them have visited before, once and together. It’s a sterile place, peopled with suspicious civilians and too many police officers. It’s unlikely that Savage has allies here. It’s unlikely he has allies anywhere, apart from his clan on Dathomir (the one that Savage ran away from, if only to keep Maul from them) and that one drunk alien separatist on Bespin. Some smugglers, maybe. He’s never talked to anyone else in Maul’s earshot. He will be alone, and friendless people—especially people like Savage, with none of Maul’s cunning or infiltration skills—are easy to find.

He won’t have left Thyferra yet, unless he’s found a ship to hotwire—highly improbable if not impossible, as he’s never taken up Maul’s offered lessons—or hid aboard a departing ship. Legitimate transport is luckily inaccessible, since Savage has no papers. If he’s tried the illegal ways, then he may have been caught. He’s very large, after all, and useless at acrobatics. Maul should visit some holding cells.

 _If_ Savage’s tried to leave the planet.

No. There is no question. He did. He betrayed Maul. Refusal of that conclusion would be nothing but a desperate attempt to cling to safety that was never true, and—

There was never any _sign_. There were soft words and touches and a strange insistence that Maul eat dreadful homemade food. There was the waking up from nightmares to see his brother’s sad, cautious face. There was too much concern, and now, Savage is gone, but.. _._ he never sounded like he would leave, ever; he never acted like he might. He didn’t even let go of Maul when Maul wanted him to leave. He was the kind of person who called Maul ‘brother’ despite the fight when they first met and the bitten-off finger, who looked at the spitting hissing creature he’d abducted and saw someone to be kind to, who was always patient and devoted and _there_.

 _I will kill your Master for you,_ Savage had promised on that riverbank months ago, _I will kill your Master_ , as if that was something people said. As if Lord Sidious could be killed. _I will kill the man that hurt you,_ and the force sang with sincerity and love.

The promise was genuine. (Genuinely suicidal, too, but that is beside the point.)

However: it was a long time ago. It was before the fight, before Maul lashed out, before Maul told him he was glad that Lord Sidious raised him and used Feral’s memory to hurt his brother. Before Savage stoked their disagreement, and Maul’s hasty words broke their life. He rejected Savage’s position, and it was meant that way, but…

Savage wants his family.

He wants the child he sees when he looks at Maul, the child that never existed.

 _That’s why Savage stayed,_ Maul decides, and the kitchen around him melts into slag. _Why he was so patient. Why he cared for me; why he endured his wannabe Sith master for so long; the reason for all his promises. Why he’s gone now. Savage tried to turn me into the person he lost, but I will never be him. And I told him that._

_And then he just…_

_Left._

+

Ty City is even more unwelcoming at night. At first, Maul attributes his failed attempts at talking to any pedestrian to the engine noise of his half-rebuilt speeder bike, and so he parks _Bloodfin_ at a footbike rack. Hopefully, her looking more trash heap than high-speed transport will mean she won’t be stolen, and the bike rack will prevent her being picked up by the garbage vehicles cruising the too-clean streets.

_(Maybe it’s the bleeding head injury, instead. Twice he almost died when she broke down at full speed, and parts of her engine were probably worn off irreparably when Maul forced her past her limits on the way here, but he never even noticed. He sleepwalked through dressing, picking the first clothes he found—his apprentice robes kept carefully folded on a chair in the sleep-room—and then he climbed onto his poor new bike. There was no space in his thoughts but for failure and betrayal.)_

Maul must ask for hints about his runaway apprentice if he is to find him fast, and so he walks and he keeps his hood off his head and what he hopes is a wide friendly smile and not a manic grimace on his face.

Still, both human colonizers and the native vratix walk faster when they see Maul, and leap away when he approaches. They jeer. They point him out to security forces, and he has to duck into alleyways and scale fences he does not have time to scale.

He has no choice, though. He must look approachable, he must ask for hints and directions, and he must not appear suspicious. People continue not to answer his questions. A vratix even screams at him, hiding behind their friends, and Maul pays attention to his facial muscles again and notices that his teeth are still bared.

 _Look friendly_ , Maul repeats to himself, _look nice,_ but it’s a difficult endeavor: he’s never actually sought out anyone’s company before, unless seeking out was a shadowed pursuit, and the company soon to be dead.

Not since his early youth, at least. Apart from one person. Maul doesn’t really want to talk to any of these people; he just wants his brother back.

Maul closes his eyes and thinks of who these civilians might want to converse with. Who he could emulate. His old Master is charm and later, hidden sudden pain, and these people would flock to answer all His questions, but Maul remains ignorant of His secrets. Even if he knew how, he’s too wired, too anxious to try anyway. Savage, though, he would smile at them and say… but he _left_. The thought doesn’t even stir up hatred or strength by now. It just hurts— _he is gone, he only wanted that child back who shares nothing but Maul’s name, and what if Maul never finds him_ —and it douses the imitation smile. In this way, it probably helps.

Finally, a young vratix stops.

“Oi, nightbrother,” they shout.

A clue. No-one but Savage and a few backwater yokels believes that this is their species. Maul makes sure that his face is arranged to look friendly, and then he says, “Hello.”

He blunders through the ensuing conversation, but the vratix has an ulterior goal—apparently they are cataloging non-standard beings on Thyferra for an art project—and so they are more tolerant of awkwardness. They are willing to trade a holo with Maul for information on the other zabrak they have met.

Four times Maul gets admonished for nervous foot tapping because it blurred the picture, and then, finally, the vratix decides that it’s enough humiliation for tonight. They take Maul’s hand and drag him towards a gigantic holomap of the city. Maul endures their curiosity and touch until they finally point out the location of the fabric store where they took Savage’s holo, and he even smiles and promises to ping their comm tomorrow and arrange to take part in another of their projects. It’s unwise to burn a source he might still need.

“Coolio,” the vratix says. “This is going to be ace. I have a holoblog for my project, you know? It would be radiant if you could leave a comment, always looking for exposure. Especially foreigners. I know it wasn’t, like, the easiest thing to show Cosmopolitan Ty because, like, is it? I’ve seen five off-worlders here ever, tops, and my ma always says that you’re all just dir... But that’s why it’s not just a project. It’s about prejudice, right? We’re all just people, you know?”

Maul nods, because it seems like the thing to do. He dutifully repeats the holoblog’s name, three times, and he tries hard not to run to the store. Not to fear.

Being angry is of more use, anyway, and as soon as the vratix leaves, Maul curses his wayward apprentice. The _indignity_. Photographed for an _art student’s holoblog._ As soon as Maul has retrieved him, he’s going to kill Savage for making Maul listen to this drivel.

+

Steaf’s Fabric Emporium is an old crime scene when Maul finds it. Shattered windows and police officers and worrying charred strikes along the floor. Lightsaber marks. A hysterical human male wrapped in half a mile of houndstooth fabric, holding himself steady with a steaming thermos. A half-melted helmet. Corpses lie there, covered in loudly-colored linen, and gargantuan muzzled reptile sniffer dogs chase each other excitedly.

The force whispers and pushes Maul out of sight.

It only takes a few minutes until Maul has sliced his pocket comm into the police frequency, and then he takes off running.

+

Maul has cherished and mended his cloak carefully for over three years now, and when he gets out of this air vent, he will destroy it. The fabric snags occasionally on loose screws while he crawls, but that alone wouldn’t have mattered. Maul is passable with a needle, and Savage is actually pretty good. _If that traitor is still…_ They could mend it. The holes could be dealt with. Still, it wouldn’t do anything for the stench. Out of sight, out of mind: the vents in this police station aren’t like the streets of Ty City, visible and thus kept free from scum. They haven’t been cleaned for years or decades, and now he is rolling around in a fine patina of congealed dust and rats’ feces, and in the smell of piss and bacta wavering up from the cells below. With every centimeter he gets closer to Cell Block Vev, he grinds the foulness deeper into the fabric.

Filth and noise and narrows, that’s all there is in here. The durasteel leg was not made for crawling. It’s already worn through cheap spun banthawool, and now it scratches and clangs on the floor, no matter how carefully he moves. _If Maul was still in his Master’s service_ , he thinks idly, _that injury alone would have obliterated his use as an assassin._ He cannot afford to slow down, though. He can only bask in his irritation.

This is all Savage’s fault.

It was stupid to go for the vents in the first place, though. They’re safe and quick, but only for getting in: Savage will never fit, and when they leave the station they will have to fight their way out regardless. But Maul wasn’t thinking clearly when he arrived and killed the secretary and used their cut-off hand to operate the station comp. He didn’t even notice or gloat that his holding cell prediction had come true.

He wasn’t thinking when he found the file— _zabrak; male; unknown age; transcript of interrogation attached; neutralized and ready for transport; weapon in evidence locker 1-8-99_ —and the mugshot with Savage’s face and utterly vacant eyes.

_Neutralized._

The station map promised a direct, quick path to his cell via the air vents, and Maul climbed in.

He didn’t expect the filth. He will burn his tunic, the one he saw in an ancient book and sewed and proudly presented to his Master, the one he’s kept to wear whenever he wants to wrap himself into his past. The one that, unluckily, he put on tonight. The cloak will go up in flames. The belt will have to burn, too. The boots, the shredded pants, everything, and he will scrub himself in the fresher for days.

It’s squalid in here, and Maul hates it with all his being. He chooses to hate it so much that he doesn’t feel his freezing fingertips—the one reason why Maul is grateful to have brought the cloak despite its unfortunate future destruction: the air vent is a frosty space, and what air rises up from the cells below is little better—and he barely notices the many times he bumps his already scabbed head.

He concentrates on hatred and disgust, because it’s better than the lack in the force, when he is this close to his apprentice.

It’s easier than thinking about what _neutralized_ means.

Only a few more piss-smelling meters— _still no sign of Savage in the force_ —and sound drifts up from the penultimate grille. According to the floorplan that Maul has memorized, it must originate from the corridor that leads to Savage’s cell, and when he looks down, a human police officer stands there, cooing into his communicator.

“Picking up that cake soon, babe. Just two more hours… Yeah, sorry, I know you don’t even get paid overtime, I shouldn’t complain, but it’s just—I don’t even know why I’m karking watching it? Not like that beast’s gonna move a centi… Yeah, guess that’s paperwork for you, yeah babe. Won’t for days, I’m sure, we head to guess the dosage and we may have highballed it a little too much…” A long pause. The human chuckles. “I know, what’s it gonna be? A lethal vomit attack? But the higher-ups… Yeah, right. They called some temple on Coruscant and you know how they are,” he says. “Still. Love you. Bye.”

The officer turns around when the grille clatters to the floor and he kneels in order to inspect it, and then Maul jumps down behind him and snaps his neck.

Steeling himself for what he does not want to see— _neutralized_ has long since crowded out _traitor_ —Maul peers through the trellis of the cell door.

Savage’s still alive.

Maul sees him, lying face-down but it’s _him_ , no-one else on this homogenous rock has yellow-skinned feet, and he’s moving slightly, shivering with cold. He isn’t… Maul would have known his apprentice’s death in the force, somehow— _Savage is his brother, he would_ know—and they wouldn’t have stationed a guard for a corpse, but that’s different from having visual confirmation. Maul looks at Savage, and he’s breathing, despite his lack of presence in the force that’s easily explained as unconsciousness now, and the sight makes it easier to admit to fears Maul didn’t want to think. Couldn’t think, because he knew he had to keep moving. Not dead.

 _Neutralized and ready for transport: drugged._ That’s all they meant.

Not dead.

 _Ready for transport._ A craven euphemism, and Maul would snap their necks again for it. They wouldn’t have stationed a guard for a corpse, but there’s little more reason to allocate a guard to this prisoner, because Savage looks utterly helpless. He almost looks even worse than Maul could have feared. Whatever drove Maul’s runaway apprentice to visit the store in the first place, whatever he may have sought and whatever mistakes he made that drew their attention…

Whatever damage he might have done, he fought the Thyferran security forces like a desperate man, and they chained him down like a _beast_.

Savage is prone on his belly, and his head lolls against the floor. Thick stripes of plasteel fabric are wrapped around his limbs, binding the legs together and the arms to Savage’s torso, and his formerly tall blunt horns have been sawed into grey nubs. They stripped him down to his smallclothes, and where there are no bindings or underpants covering Savage’s flesh, there is no blood either, no nerves visibly exposed by cutting off his horns— _“No, Master, please,” Maul begged and begged and he knew he deserved his pain for trying to headbutt his Master_ —but that means nothing.

Thyferra’s main export is bacta. It stands to reason that her people prefer their caged enemies to be cleaned up. They are medical people. They prefer control and healing to gore. They prefer the cold.

They’ve put a muzzle on Savage as well, a massive thing made of black plastoid and thick straps. It’s so ill-fitting that they must have requisitioned it from one of their reptile-dogs. The straps are knotted too tightly in the back of his neck and at the top of his head, and the snaps that were supposed to be used instead hang down limply. Savage is smaller than their dogs. The knots are too taut. The muzzle digs into the flesh of Savage’s cheeks.

_(“Please, Master,” Maul would have whimpered if the gag allowed for it, “Please, I know I am Yours,” but despite the urge he wasn’t stupid enough even then to believe that remorse might save him. He was small and chained and helpless, and if he was lucky enough to survive the pain then he could earn his use again.)_

Savage’s eyes are tear-swelled.

_(The fire ants inside his arms came first, and when they had almost eaten their fill they scrambled away as if they were puppets, and then he drowned in bacta, and then it was silent. Silent. Silent.)_

An animal. Maul’s apprentice—his _brother_ —a chained, de-horned, muzzled animal.

_They have no right._

Maul looks down at his brother, shivering and hurt, and though he tries hard to see nothing but the wages of his apprentice’s betrayal, that’s not what lies before him. For a second, he is back in his nightmare, watching a red-black child float suspended and chained in a sensory deprivation box for weeks. In the cold clear light of the cell lamps, everything makes sense. Savage’s words make sense. His hatred makes sense. It’s not a lesson. It’s not right. This does not teach strength.

It’s helplessness and pain and the knowledge that you are nothing, and they— _Master_ —they can do anything they want. They can touch you; you are not allowed to cringe. They can move you; you cannot dodge, and because you didn’t, this pain is your fault.

They can speak, and you cannot reply because what use are the words of an animal.

Of a _thing_.

These people hurt Savage, and they will die. They will suffer. _Master hurt_ … it was His right and His duty and Maul still believes this, he must believe it because without training what is there left but a Monster and a victim, and—

Maul was smaller then, and just as helpless, and he was a person who had a brother who would have given anything just to watch him crawl backwards into corners, a brother who didn’t, _doesn’t_ , want him to hurt, just as Maul hates the people who hurt Savage. That child was terrified and in pain, just as Savage would be if he wasn’t drugged to the gills right now.

That child was tied down. He was tiny. _There was a Monster, and a victim._ It was—

The situations are utterly different. There was a point to Lord Sidious’ cruelty— _there must have been a reason—_ whereas this is just senseless. Savage isn’t even much of a threat, to anyone. He is kind and large and friendly, and even during an argument, he’s just fighting because he _cares_. He doesn’t deserve to be hurt. Master was justified in doing what he did. He was inducting Maul into the dark side and teaching how one draws strength from pain, and so there had to be pain. Master was preparing Maul for destiny, for his place in Bane’s great lineage.

Lord Sidious was training His apprentice to withstand every torture, but those are not the words that Savage hears. Savage has his own meanings. Savage hears: Master _subjected_ Maul to every torture.

_A Monster, and a…_

It was completely different. It must be different.

It must be.

It—

Savage whimpers. It breaks the memory: there was no-one to soothe that terrified child in Sidious’ secret complex, but Maul is here now. He can end this.

He cuts off the dead guard’s hand and opens the trellis to Savage’s cell—how stupid of them, to have fingerprint locks for everything—and then he hooks the limb into his belt in case he shall have need of it again. He rushes inside and sits next to his brother’s head. He pulls it into his lap. It lolls.

Unknotting the muzzle straps is too time-consuming, so Maul pulls a tiny vibroshiv from inside his left boot and cuts them, slowly and methodically. His hands shake, and he draws no blood. He gently rubs the angry spots where the fabric pressed into Savage’s flesh, but the swelling does not go down. The bruises stay. Later, they will heal, he knows from experience. They will disappear. It will not be like it was never there, the muzzle, even if the swelling goes down, but the body will heal in time.

He avoids touching what’s left of Savage’s horns. They look healed, deadened, but Maul does not trust it. They must still be sore. If they are not… still, Maul hated those touches for months after his were cut, even more than he hated all contact.

Savage sighs and turns his head into Maul’s touch.

“You’re pathetic,” Maul whispers, and then he starts cutting the arm straps. Savage is unconscious. He will not hear anything. It’s the best time to refine Maul’s argument. He must be convinced: if he betrays Maul again, he may evade pursuit, and he might die. Savage is alive, is _safe_ , now that Maul has found him, and for the first time in hours Maul can think again. “You’re very weak. You should have been able to fight them off. If I was the Master you deserve, if you’d let me train you, if you hadn’t betrayed me, you would have been able to fight them off.”

Another strap falls.

“You couldn’t, and you could have died.”

This time, the knife nicks his brother, but there is no time to waste on waiting to steady his trembling hands. There is no time to waste on comfort, either, but Maul cannot stop himself from trying to wipe the blood away. It doesn’t work. Maul’s hands are still covered in the police officer’s blood, and he only increases the mess.

“It would have been my fault. I am your Master. I’m supposed to teach you strength.”

He cuts the final torso strap, and then he gently lowers the head onto the floor and rolls his brother over onto his back. He takes hold of the limp left arm. It’s streaked with bruising left over from too much pressure, and in the bend of the elbow there are scabbed needle pricks where they administered the sedation. No use asking Savage what kind of drug it was when he wakes up, or the dosage. It was not fatal, and that shall suffice.

“You could have died. _Through power I gain victory,_ that’s what I promised you. I should have taught you to defend yourself better.”

“You—” a hacking cough. “You re… reversed the logic, brother.”

Happiness and leftover stillborn anger fight inside Maul. Confusion wins. He replies, “What.”

“Water? Please, can I… water?” Savage licks his lips, eyes hazy and unfocused. There’s no IV, and no telling how long he’s been held here. Sedatives and severe dehydration: not a pleasant experience, as Maul well knows. It’s no excuse for re-starting the argument, though. Savage mumbles, “That’s not ho… how the Sith work. It’s not...”

“You’re on enough drugs to kill a bantha,” Maul snaps. He pats down his pockets—two crumpled protein bars, screwdriver, miniblaster, multitool, stim shots, lock pick, vibroknife, garotte, comm, backup comm, another knife… ah, there. He did pack the small hydrosack.

Savage’s arms must still be too numb to hold anything, and so Maul drags his brother into a sitting position and helps him drink his fill.

“No,” Savage says, only slightly more coherent once the hydrosack is emptied. “It’s not how the Sith work. I’ve been thinking about this for a long time. I had so much time to think. And I... You insist on being my master because you don’t want me to die. That, I understand.”

“Thanks.”

“It’s not the same thing as forging a child into a weapon. It’s the opposite, brother.”

 _Unfortunately,_ Maul decides, _the muzzle is already in pieces_. There’s no second water ration. No way of keeping Savage from talking that doesn’t involve ordering him to shut up and therefore causing another fight, in addition to admitting Maul’s weakness. His curiosity. _A Monster, and a…_

“It didn’t fit, except… You reversed it. The weak die young. A child must grow strong to survive the trials, I know, but that’s not… not what that monster taught you. He didn’t want you safe. He wasn’t doing it to keep you alive. He put you in danger in the first place. There were no Sisters. It was all him.” Savage looks up with half-lidded eyes and the deep conviction of the heavily mentally impaired. “He took you and abused you and said it would make you Sith. He didn’t try to make you strong so you wouldn’t get hurt. He didn’t care whether you were hurt. He hurt you.”

“There’s no time to get to the evidence locker, and a naked zabrak is going to look even more suspect when we get out. A massive, naked, drugged zabrak who can’t walk well. I don’t know how long you have been hogtied, but it may already have caused slight muscle damage,” Maul says, fleeing into practicality. “We will draw attention anyway, but it’ll be worse if you’re naked. They’re very suspicious of outsiders, the Thyferrans, and it’s a long walk to my bike.”

“You’re not Sidious. He was always wrong, and you knew. You changed his words.”

“My cloak will reach your knees at best,” Maul decides. “And it’s filthy. But it’s probably wide enough to fit you.”

“Love you too, little brother.”

Maul quiets. He does not move, and it’s good that he doesn’t: it allows him to hear twin pairs of boots ambling closer.

He drops the cloak to the floor, and then he leans his brother against the wall. Once he is reasonably confident that Savage will remain upright for at least half a minute, he lets go. Savage sways a little. “Don’t move,” Maul whispers. “I’ll be back. You’re heavy. Even I can’t drag your massive carcass around and avenge you at the same time.”

+

_(The hologram will play and play again, footage from a cell camera they hadn’t noticed or cared about, but Maul will not watch it. He will remember this moment and its relief, its illicit tenderness; he etched it into his mind long before the recording was thrown down to where he kneels, and will remember the words long after. He will not look at anything.)_

+

On the way back to their ship, Maul cannot stop himself, and so he asks Savage why he left. He receives no answer, and he’s glad for it. It’s not a conversation to be had while his brother is still this addled. When they haven’t yet flown to safety. The question is not exactly the one he wanted, either—he doesn’t know what he wants to say—even though he desperately needs to know. He needs to find a way to keep Savage from running off again. _He could have died._ He can’t be allowed to leave, ever again.

The newly stolen replacement for the replacement for _Bloodfin_ rumbles quietly, crawling between skyscrapers while irate commuters honk at them. Maul takes myriad detours because he’s certain they’re drawing attention for being too slow, and moreover, being judged a bad driver injures Maul’s pride.

Increased speed would have its own pitfalls, though.

It would make it far too easy for sleepy people to fall off.

At least he would feel it if he lost Savage now: his weight presses warm and heavy against Maul’s back, and it’s not as smothering as it should be. Maybe it’s because Maul chose to put Savage there himself, helped him climb onto the back seat and then held a hand on his head to keep him upright and allow Maul to slide in in front of him. Maybe it’s because even now Savage is too groggy to hold onto him—to imprison Maul inside his arms—and it would be trivial to free himself.

Maybe it’s this: twenty years of isolated apprenticeship are no match against the last three. Somehow, two days has become a long time to be alone.

+

“I shouldn’t have said that,” Maul mutters, a week later, staring at the white stripes of hyperspace as if they held the arcane writings of Bane himself. They’re in the cockpit, still on the way to a planet he picked at random because it was on the other side of the galaxy and there is no way Savage can flee again if they never leave _Sheathipede_.

He should be at ease by now, should have moved forward, but between them there’s still tension that didn’t exist before. Savage isn’t talking much, doesn’t even join in with Maul’s idle mocking of the radio news broadcast. They will need to refuel soon.

They’ll need to land, and Maul has spent his nights and noons thinking about how to keep his apprentice by his side, fruitlessly. Enticing him with power and knowledge is pointless, even counterproductive. Implanting a tracking device requires surgical skills that Maul doesn’t possess, and so it would entail giving Savage into the care of a stranger, which… No. Not again. Never again. Detaining him on the ship forever is impractical, and it doesn’t turn the clock back to that time when Maul could close his eyes and simply trust that Savage would stay. The easy comradeship is gone, and Maul misses it.

There is only one thing he can think of that might alleviate his anxiety: Maul knows he cannot unspeak his words, but… if what Savage wants is his family, then Maul will try. Else his apprentice might endanger himself again, might run again, and Savage should never have been hurt.

“Brother,” more loudly this time in case Savage wasn’t paying attention. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“So the reporting team of _Esk-Beth Coruscant_ isn’t falling for an obvious scam?”

“Don’t pretend to be dumber than you are. You know what I am referring to.” Savage stays mulishly silent, and so Maul is forced to continue, “You told me that I did not want to be your Sith Master, and I reacted badly.”

“Oh, that,” Savage says. “That was weeks ago. You’re still upset?”

“Are you trying to tell me that you aren’t—” Maul shakes his head. Remaining calm is necessary, if he is to see through what he started. This was not supposed to be another fight. “I shouldn’t have told you that I would be dead if you had raised me. That was… You told me of Feral, of what you were forced to do, and I hurt you with it.”

“That’s what you were talking about?”

“What else?”

“I just thought that it was true,” Savage admits. A finger softly knocks against Maul’s hand, as if Savage was asking Maul to look at him, but hyperspace is much more interesting. So many completely identical lines passing by. “Brother, few males survive long on Dathomir. I have mourned so many people, and I just thought… You were right. You would probably have died. I couldn’t have protected you from the Sisters, although, with the Mother’s interest in you… She commanded me to find you, after all, and She wouldn’t have spared a thought for another missing nightbrother. She… Whatever She wants with you… I couldn’t have protected you. Just like I could not protect you from Sidious. I’m not strong enough for that. I’m sorry.”

Maul does not quite know what he should say. Something comforting, probably. Instead, he fiddles with the radio controls; louder, quiet, and then off.

“I couldn’t even handle those police officers on Thyferra.”

“You fought well. You killed several of their number. They wouldn’t have bothered with the muzzle at all, if they had not feared for their fingers,” Maul tells the windscreen with a lightness he does not quite feel. A muzzle is a terrible thing. It has always been. “It’s difficult to fight that many people simultaneously, and you’re only an apprentice. You were weaker than ten stun guns. That does not make you weak.”

“I provoked the fight, brother. Someone touched me when I was arguing, because it’s not a lie that we use rancor leather and the man said—I was distracted, and someone touched me, and I spooked. I killed him. I don’t think they were trying to hurt me before that.”

The force colors with anger and shame; just faintly, but Savage is still recovering from captivity and drug-haze. He disdains himself for his weakness. Maul wants to agree—he does agree, or he would have, just days ago—but there is nothing to be gained from dwelling on this mistake, from heaping more suffering onto it. Some stones just drown. They already hurt Savage for his fear, and more punishment _won’t_ … it’s a new idea, and it’s what Savage would say, but that doesn’t make it wrong.

Savage wants his family, and kindness is a brother’s choice.

Maul can choose to make it.

He can choose to be the brother Savage expects. If he is to keep them together freely, he must.

“You didn’t deserve to be abused, brother. They chained you down like an animal. They cut your horns. No-one deserves that.” Maybe Savage understands the significance, the surrender to an argument he apparently doesn’t even remember, or maybe he lacks the context: either way, the force grows warm and grateful. It’s a heady feeling, and so Maul adds, “And I found you. You were not fighting them alone.”

“I know, brother. We together are strong. I should not have gone alone in the first place.”

 _You shouldn’t_ , Maul thinks. _You shouldn’t have told Gorge to distract me when I asked about you. You should have let me train you._

_You shouldn’t have betrayed me._

Still: stones will only sink. He must make a different choice. “Why did you?”

“When you said that you’d have died, it reminded me: I am thirty-one, now. I am older than any of my brothers have ever been.”

“You’re not that old,” Maul says, mostly for the sake of contradiction, and to lure out more words. He’s undecided on the matter, in truth: compared to Lord Sidious, no-one is old; but if Maul could look away from the stars of hyperspace passing by the windshield without losing his calm, he’d see the faint beginnings of crows’ feet in the corners of Savage’s eyes.

“I’m old, brother,” Savage replies. “I didn’t really think about it much because I was too preoccupied with trying to help you, but then the Woman… then _it_ happened, and then what you said reminded me… I am old. I could die any day, and you’ll have nothing to remember me by. That’s why… When a nightbrother grows of age—grows old enough for the trials, for breeding, so old that the Sisters will take him… he makes his brothers gifts. Leather bracelets, mostly, and there were no rancors to hunt on Thyferra so I tried to buy… You should have something I touched, so you can remember me when I am dead.”

The placid acceptance boils Maul’s blood. “I don’t care about your primitive customs.”

“Brother, listen—”

“No,” Maul snaps. He wheels around to stare him down, all plans for ceding ground and making Savage want to stay again forgotten. “No. Shut up.”

Savage doesn’t flinch. It’s a near thing, though, eyes closing and then moving past Maul’s face. Still, he tries, “Maul, you don’t know…”

“No.”

“Brother, you don’t understand. It does help. I would give anything to have that bracelet Feral made for me, but the Sisters undressed me before the ritual and when I… when I had a mind again, I was on the ship and Feral was dead and it was gone.”

“No,” Maul says. “I don’t need it. You will not die.”

“Brother, I know you want—”

“You will not die. I don’t need any of your trinkets. I don’t care that you don’t want me to train you anymore. I don’t care that you despise the Sith. I don’t care that you want to leave me. I won’t let you. I won’t let you die.”

“I didn’t—”

“Understand: when you look at me, you see the baby torn from your arms, but it was weak. It died the moment Lord Sidious looked at it.” It died then; its neck snapped with the first animal it was forced to kill; it drowned in that deprivation box. It does not matter. “Mourn your child all you want, but remember, I am not it. I am strong. I am Maul, not that child, and I will find you again however far you run. I am not a nightbrother, I’m not chattel waiting for death, and no matter how distasteful you find my training, I will not let you die.”

A pause— _a stunned pause_ , Maul decides, although his chest heaves too much to look and find out—and then: a touch. “I know that, brother,” Savage says.

“Yes. That’s why you left.”

“What are you talking about?”

“We fought, and then you left me.”

Savage laughs, not mirth but relief of tension. Then he says, “I didn’t. I wouldn’t, brother, I will never give you up. Didn’t you listen? I was buying you a present, because I went too far and you weren’t yet ready to—” Savage’s fingers tap the navcomputer anxiously— “to hear me, about the kind of man your Master was. And then I couldn’t fight back against their blasters, and I let you down, but… that’s the only reason I didn’t walk back to you. I never willingly left. I won’t desert you.”

Oh. That does make sense. “But I’m not—”

“I know. I’m not blind. It’s been three years. I have stayed by your side, and I loved you when you were a baby, but I love you now, brother. I trust you. It’s just—I want a better life for you. Sidious didn’t just try to teach you strength. It was a… a side-effect, I think, of obedience, because he wanted a tool, and a powerless tool is useless.”

Maul bites his lip, because he should counter this attack—he can't just be a tool; he is Sith, and the apprentice will kill and supplant his Master—but… _agony is no teacher of strength if I cannot even think, apart from…_ (Think, Maul: what _else_ does Sidious want?) _He can do anything He wants. He is in control. I am Yours, the child would have begged._ He has always known the answer.

“I know obedience, Maul. I’m a nightbrother: service is what I was bred for. I have watched the Nightsisters enforce control, and tried to teach children the strength for survival. It’s different. You can have one without the other.”

The stars slide further by, and Maul lets those words wash over him.

“We are free, now,” Savage whispers. “There are no Sisters here. No Master. You do not have to be Sidious, and I know you too well to believe you want to be him.”

+

_(The replay of the cell’s holorecording will show tenderness, epiphany. Its sound will be much louder than the whimpers and the pain and the lightning, but still, He will dominate the room when He hisses, “Do you even understand what your beast did?”_

_Maul will watch streaks of abraded skin on the floor. He is not required to speak._

_“I was content to watch you run around the galaxy, wreaking minor chaos and terrifying the Jedi so much they diverted all their attention into finding you. That was quite amusing. Useful. But evidently, you cannot be trusted not to betray my existence.” He will sigh, the very picture of idle disappointment even though the force will burn livid and purple with His anger. “You just had to ruin it. You had to speak my name, to betray your Master. If it were not for my interceding, those careless words would have been shown to the Jedi. Your little adventure would have derailed plans that your tiny brain cannot even begin to comprehend. Look at me.”_

_The lightning will bite, and only then will Maul look up._

_He will look up, and finally see: an old man who hurt a child and enjoyed it.)_

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much to astarsdarkheart who told me to rewrite from scratch when I got completely stuck on the first version of this story, I couldn't have written this without your help! Also: I've been writing Runaways 'verse for almost exactly a year now. Thanks so much to everyone who read, gave kudos or talked to me, without you this fic would never have existed!
> 
> This is pretty much the conclusion of the first arc, I realized very recently. Now that they've worked out their differences, they are ready to take on their enemies! in the next roughly five stories of my plot outline :)
> 
> Title's from Island Garden Song by the Mountain Goats, although the song that inspired this was Malcolm Middleton's Devastation (whose narrator is way too emotionally honest with himself for me to pick a line as a title) and also [this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DLzxrzFCyOs)
> 
> As always: I hope you enjoyed the fruits of 3 months of cursing at my word processor, and thanks so much for reading!


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